


if you could read my mind, you'd be in tears

by MayWilder



Series: i'll dry your tears [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alluding to Rape/Non-Con, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Catelyn Stark is a Good Mother, I mean i think this is angst, Jon Snow is NOT a Stark, M/M, Ned Stark Loves His Children, Parental Homphobia, Starks Unite, identity crisis, mentions of drug use, pov fic, throbb - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 03:05:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16400159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayWilder/pseuds/MayWilder
Summary: “We love you,” Arya whispers then, finally turning around. The other siblings pull back enough so that Theon can fully see her. “We love you, even when you push us away. Even when you did drugs because Ramsey wanted you to, even when you came back with missing fingers and a broken tooth. We loved you when you didn’t want us to, and we do now.”“Yeah,” Rickon says firmly. “No conditions.”“No conditions,” Bran, Jon, and Sansa say.Their eyes turn to Robb, who finally returns to a normal frequency. The young man, oldest Stark child and only person Theon Greyjoy has ever bared his soul to, reaches a hand out and grasps Theon’s coat collar. “No conditions.”





	if you could read my mind, you'd be in tears

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a quote by an unknown author. 
> 
> This fic is seen through the eyes of Ned in a past/present format. Italics mean memories. 
> 
> Warnings: Theon alludes to rape/non-con and drugs are mentioned.

 

Ned has just crept downstairs when he hears it—them, his children—and stops in the entryway of his home. Glad that the light above him is off, he peers through the glass pane that separates the entryway and the living room. He isn’t quite sure how to process the scene before him.

Theon is leaning against the fireplace mantle, his eye bruised and one of his hands looking like it’s swollen. Sansa is rummaging through a large first aid kit, dressed in her silk pajamas as usual. There’s a smudge of blood on the shoulder of her robe and he marvels that she isn’t angry about it. She’s pulling what he sees to be an ACE bandage out.

Bran is sitting in silence, hands folded in his lap and his wheelchair positioned to face the fireplace. He’s wearing his glasses and looks as philosophical as ever. Rickon is sitting on the arm of the chair (Catelyn would have something to say about that) and looking wildly furious. Arya is pacing, hands flexing like she needs to grip something.

Jon, who is as usual staying the night without having asked, sits on the chair next to Rickon. His eyes dart around to his friends. If Ned is correct, Jon is rifling through all of the possible outcomes and trying to bring out the best one. Most often, his eyes trail to Robb, who stands by Theon’s side in quiet rage.

“I don’t understand,” Robb whispers.

“Robb,” Sansa snaps. She moves to cradle Theon’s wrist. “Now is not the time.”

“Or perhaps,” Bran interludes, gently. “Now is the perfect time.”

Sansa’s face is hidden from view, but Ned knows the rigidness of her shoulders well enough.

“You left him, you said you were done,” Robb pressed. Arya stops pacing at the steel in his voice, and Ned holds his breath as Robb fully looks at Theon. “You said you were done.”

“It’s not that simple,” Theon replies. His voice sounds like it will always crack and his lip trembles. Sansa lovingly strokes his hair from his eyes. “He knows the truth about me. He can take whatever he wants.”

Ned thinks he’s going to be sick, and Jon looks the same. Arya turns from all of them while Rickon’s fists tighten. Robb looks bewildered. “What truth, Theon?”

When Theo speaks next, Ned’s heart is breaking and he’s wishing, begging to be back when Theon was a child who only needed loving parents. He was so far beyond that little lad.

 

_“Mummy, Dad, we’ve made a friend!”_

_Ned looked up to find Robb grinning, face smeared with dirt and hand holding that of another boy’s. His son was eight, so enthusiastic to be friendly to all around him. Here he stood with another boy of similar age, a mop of black curls to rival Robb’s red ones, Sansa and Jon not far behind. “Oh? And who would that be?”_

_“Theon Greyjoy, sir.” The boy stuck his hand out. He seemed slightly fearful of Ned, but only if you payed attention to the shiftiness of his eyes. A bruise peeking from the collar of his shirt gave Ned pause and made him wonder why exactly Theon was scared of him. “I don’t mean to bother anyone.”_

_“Theon,” Cat said from next to him. Bless his wife, she knelt on the ground with a sweet smile. “We are not bothered by new friends. The park is a place where we can make friends, don’t you think?”_

_He hesitantly nodded._

_“Who are you here with? I’d love to meet your parents,” Cat continued. “And then maybe you can show me how strong you are by pushing me in the swings.”_

_Unsurprisingly, Sansa slides up next to the new boy. Just a girl of five, she curtsies to Theon. Her tiny voice carries a strong tone. “If you would, Sir Greyjoy, I should like to be pushed on the swings as well.”_

_And just like that, Cat’s suggestion of meeting any Greyjoys has been blown away by the wind and Sansa’s smiles. Ned chuckles and helps his pregnant wife back up on to the bench. “We’ve got three children, another on the way, not to mention Lyanna’s boy always hanging around. What’s another child for Robb to drag home?”_

_“He likes lost pups, what can I say?” Cat sighed and rocked the carrier on the seat next to her. Little Arya slept on, only soothed by the outside noises. “He’s much like his father in that.”_

_“Don’t know what you mean,” Ned grunted. “You’re the one who feeds them and they just keep coming back.”_

_Cat smiles one of her knowing smiles. “We should sell the house and move before Brandon is born. We need another guest room for when the boys grow up.”_

_“How do you know Jon and Theon will be around in the future?”_

_Catelyn Stark rolls her eyes. “I’ll call the realtor in the morning.”_

 

Now, looking at the boy who Ned and Cat just wanted to love, his heart breaks because Theon didn’t understand. Perhaps he never had.

“What truth, Theon?”

“That nobody is ever going to find me worthy of love,” Theon answers. “So, there’s no point in fighting when he takes what he wants, how he wants.”

“Theon,” Sansa whispers. She’s done wrapping his wrist and moves to enfold him into a hug. Theon cries into her shoulder, the volume increasing when Bran silently takes his free hand. Arya is still turned away, always a firecracker of emotions and nowhere to go off. Jon moves closer and wraps an arm around Theon. Rickon wedges in somehow.

Robb shakes. It’s in his shoulders, in his hands, in the unsteady sway of his body because he’s vibrating at such a frequency that his feet can’t seem to stand still. Ned knows that he’s trying not to be angry. Angry is Theon’s least favorite look on anyone, but especially on any of the Starks. The boy has been like that since he first heard Ned raise his voice, since Catelyn smacked the back of Jon’s head in loose affection. He’d always been frightened of the anger and put off casual, unworried vibes to the world around him in hopes that nobody else got angry.

Except, when he was truly scared, he didn’t bother. Ned remembered that all too well.

 

_Ned was awoken by Robb’s fearful voice. At first he couldn’t distinguish the words, but Cat was awake and fully conversing._

_“Where is he?” she asked in a hushed tone._

_“His bedroom,” Robb answered shakily. He sounded like he’d been crying. “I told him I would come get him, but he begged me not to come. Said his Dad beat him so badly because of who Theon was, because he’d done something repulsive. I can’t figure out what exactly happened, but he only called to say he was sorry and could never see me again.”_

_By now, Ned was completely aware. “I’ll go and get him, Cat. Can you be ready for when I come back?”_

_“We’re coming with,” Jon interjected. Ned had grown so used to Jon’s presence, he almost hadn’t noticed. “He needs us.”_

_Cat purses her lips. “You will not go anywhere near that house, Jon Snow. I’m not risking you two getting hurt. Theon needs you strong.”_

_“Theon will fight anyone except his dad,” Jon argued._

_“And Jon won’t fight anyone except Greyjoy,” Robb said. “And Dad can’t carry Theon out while protecting him from Greyjoy. Jon and I can get Theon, and Dad can make sure we’re alright.”_

_Ned sighed. Even at only fifteen, they were too strong-willed for their own good._

_“Let’s go then,” Ned grumbled. He pushed himself from his bed and towards the hall light. “We shouldn’t leave Theon waiting.”_

_And so they’d gone to get Theon, entering the Greyjoy home with the key Robb had made long ago. They walked right past Balon Greyjoy, who was drunk and passed out on the couch. Jon, without faltering a bit, socked Maron Greyjoy when he tried to step in front of Theon’s door, so hard that something audibly crunched. They kept walking until they entered Theon’s bedroom door to find him curled into a ball on his bed._

_Robb was the one to scoop Theon into his arms, no words exchanged between the two._

_They left the house as swiftly as they’d come, Robb cradling Theon in the backseat and whispering to him that “Everything’s going to be alright, you’re safe now.” Jon played a record Ned wasn’t familiar with, but it seemed to quiet Theon’s cries._

_Nobody spoke all night. Robb carried Theon into the house, laid him on the guest bed. Catelyn and he stripped Theon to wash away any trace of blood and sweat, to comb his hair and wrap his bruised ankle and sprained wrist—a wrist that sprained too easily from too many years of abuse. They covered him in some kind of soothing oils Cat always had, massaging them into bruises and gently caressing the coloring on his collar bone, always his collar bone._

_Robb held his hand, Jon sat on the floor next to him, and Ned and Cat left them for the night._

_In the morning, Ned found himself kicking every single Stark child from the room—how they all knew to crowd around Theon, he didn’t know—so he could speak with Theon. The boy was leaning against the headboard, a cup of tea in his hands and eyes cast down._

_“I know you want me to tell you why, but I can’t,” Theon croaked. Ned kept himself leaning against the door. “You’ll be angry at me for lying to you, for staying under your roof while I was…you just, I can’t bear it for you to hate me, so I can’t. I can’t.”_

_Ned’s jaw set. A parent’s job was to love their child unconditionally. Balon Greyjoy had beaten it into Theon, however, that there were conditions. Ned would not have that. “My boy, there is nothing you could possibly do that would make me hate you. No lie, no action, no admission. Nothing you say will change my mind about it. My love comes with no conditions”_

_And so, tears streaming from his face, Theon Greyjoy admitted that he was gay._

_And so, Ned Stark had held him and promised it did not make him unlovable or repulsive or broken._

_“No conditions,” Ned whispered, pressing a rare kiss to the boy’s head. “No conditions.”_

 

“You are worthy of love,” Sansa promises in the present, and Ned’s sick feeling returns.

“My father didn’t love me; my brothers didn’t love me.” Theon ducks down. “ _He_ doesn’t love me.”

All of them know who Theon speaks of when he says “He” and Ned knows he never would have dared to utter those words if his guard had been up. Ramsey Bolton had broken Theon.

“We love you,” Arya whispers then, finally turning around. The other siblings pull back enough so that Theon can fully see her. “We love you, even when you push us away. Even when you did drugs because Ramsey wanted you to, even when you came back with missing fingers and a broken tooth. We loved you when you didn’t want us to, and we do now.”

“Yeah,” Rickon says firmly. “No conditions.”

“No conditions,” Bran, Jon, and Sansa say.

Their eyes turn to Robb, who’s body finally returns to a normal frequency. The young man, oldest Stark child and only person Theon Greyjoy has ever bared his soul to, reaches a hand out and grasps Theon’s coat collar. “No conditions.”

 

_Sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea with Cat and Sansa, Ned’s afternoon took a completely unexpected turn. The peaceful Sunday was interrupted by the slamming of a door and two voices echoing through what was supposed to be an empty house. It would have been, had Sansa not taken ill, making Cat and Ned stay behind while Jon took the younger Starks to the cinema._

_“I don’t understand what the big deal is,” Theon was groaning loudly. “I don’t complain about who you date!”_

_"_ _Because I don’t date drug addicts!” Robb’s voice carried._

_“He’s not a drug addict, you self-righteous prick. He just doesn’t fit your prissy expectations.”_

_“Don’t make this about money when you grew up—_

_“It’s not about money, we’ve all got money,” Theon cut him off. “It’s about the fact that you act like you’re so much better than the rest of us. ‘I’m Robb Stark and I’ve never eaten a pot brownie, I’ve never smoked a fag, I’ve never fucked a boy, because I’m good and traditional and someone you can bring home to mummy.’ What? What is that look about?”_

_“You have some fucking nerve—_

_“Saying you’ve fucked a boy? Bringing up old memories you’d rather bury?”_

_“That’s not true,” Robb snapped. “You know that meant something to me. You can’t throw it around like I’m the one who ran off.”_

_“Because you freaked and begged me not to tell your dad!”_

_“I didn’t know what was happening!”_

_“Christ, Stark, was your cock up my ass so confusing?”_

_Sansa almost choked on her tea and Cat’s eyes widened. She moved to leave the kitchen, but Ned held out a hand and whispered, “They need to work this out on their own. Intervening will only cause more mess.”_

_So Cat wrapped an arm around Sansa and continued to listen._

_“You never gave me time,” Robb pleaded._

_“Neither did you, Robb! You ran back to Jeyne, asked her to take you back and go to Uni. You left me here, in this goddamn town where every corner is a memory of you, and I wanted to feel better. Ramsey can do that for me.”_

_Robb’s voice got louder. “You were beaten by your dad, by your brothers, and you let us help you put a stop to it. When Joffrey was beating Sansa, you were the one who figured it out. You were the one who came here in the middle of the night and told us before driving down to Highgarden to rescue her.”_

_Sansa, standing with her mother, cried._

_“You taught us about how to avoid abuse, and yet you run back to it?” Robb wasnobviously furious. “It’s like you get off on it or something, honestly!”_

_Ned’s heart utterly stopped, and silence fills the house, achingly so._

_“Theon,” Robb said with a crack in his voice. “I didn’t mean that—_

_“He wasn’t like it at first,” Theon said quickly, voice now devoid of emotion. “You can’t bring yourself to admit that you’re gay, so you freaked the fuck out when we had sex and ran back to Jeyne. You keep who you are from your parents, try to keep it from Jon, try to keep it from your siblings. You keep who you are a secret from them, because you can’t admit who you are. Why is beyond me, when you have a family that loves you and promises to_ without conditions _. Whatever your reasons are, you are not honest with yourself, and you broke my heart when you said it was wrong of us to do it in the first place, and that nobody could ever know._

_“Well, fuck you, Robb Stark,” Theon’s voice suddenly rose. “I went to the pub and found someone who was at least honest about who he was. Ramsey has never pretended to be someone just to please the world! He fucked me, and he told a lot of people about it, and he felt good about it. So yeah, I stay with him. Because even if he leaves bruises on me, if he tells me I’m too dirty for the porcelain Robb Stark, at least he doesn’t lie about it. That’s what gets me off, you daft arse. The fact that at least I wake up every morning and he calls me his boyfriend. His bruises are nothing compared to your lies.”_

_And while Ned didn’t agree with the logic, wanted to call Theon back, he knew the damage is done._

_“Fuck you, Stark. Have a nice life. Or don’t.”_

_The door slammed again, and suddenly Robb was screaming in anger and Sansa was running to comfort him, and they both cried. Cat shook and begged Ned to fix it, to bring Theon back, but he couldn’t. He could only kneel in front of his son, who apologized and said it was his fault, he pushed Theon away. He could only kiss his forehead and promise, “No conditions.”_

 

Now, Ned knows he isn’t needed. He watches, from the darkness, as Robb pulls Theon into a tight embrace and presses a kiss to his forehead. “No conditions.”

So, he returns to his bed, sleeps next to his wife, and knows they will be woken in the morning with the news that Theon is home and he will not be going anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm maywildflowers on tumblr. hit me up for a trash can of my faves


End file.
